Pushing the Limits by Katie McGarry

From Goodreads: I won't tell anyone, Echo. I promise." Noah tucked a curl behind my ear. It had been so long since someone touched me like he did. Why did it have to be Noah Hutchins? His dark brown eyes shifted to my covered arms. "You didn't do that-did you? It was done to you?" No one ever asked that question. They stared. They whispered. They laughed. But they never asked.

So wrong for each other...and yet so right.

No one knows what happened the night Echo Emerson went from popular girl with jock boyfriend to gossiped-about outsider with freaky scars on her arms. Even Echo can't remember the whole truth of that horrible night. All she knows is that she wants everything to go back to normal. But when Noah Hutchins, the smoking-hot, girl-using loner in the black leather jacket, explodes into her life with his tough attitude and surprising understanding, Echo's world shifts in ways she could never have imagined. They should have nothing in common. And with the secrets they both keep, being together is pretty much impossible.Yet the crazy attraction between them refuses to go away. And Echo has to ask herself just how far they can push the limits and what she'll risk for the one guy who might teach her how to love again.

Echo Emerson just needs to be left alone. She isn't part of the popular crowd anymore and spends most of her time hiding her arms and herself away from everyone, her parents have divorced, her brother died in combat and her babysitter is now her step-mother. Why can't she remember what happened the night she nearly died, the night which left her with the scars on her arms and her mother with a restraining order.

Noah Hutchins just needs to finish high school so he can get a full time job, apply for custody of his two younger brothers and take them from their foster parents, then they can start to be a real family again.

Who would of thought that two people from such different backgrounds, actually need each other?

I really liked Echo as a main character, she tried to portray herself as snarky and strong willed when actually she was breaking inside and her father had control over her life, after meeting Noah she started to stand up for herself. Her memory loss was a good addition to the story and really kept me wondering exactly what had happened, I particularly liked that she discovered the truth in small snippets of information, it would of been easy for Mrs Collins or her father to tell her but it made the story more intriguing that it was left for Echo to remember. Noah was as well written as Echo and his issues were just as real, they didn't feel like just a filler. He had a bad attitude, bad grades and a fierce reputation at the start of the book after meeting Echo he calmed down and became a more thoughtful and less selfish person, I liked how Katie developed him as a character, he definitely won me over.

The story moved at a good pace not too fast that you couldn't keep up but not too slow that you lost interest, the dual narrative helped me to connect with them and it is fast becoming my favourite way for a story to be told.

The supporting characters were well developed and had their own stories and purpose, this helped the story progress for me without taking the limelight away from Echo and Noah. I really grew to like Beth, she was a interesting character and I liked her protectiveness over Noah and her budding romance with Isaiah, I will definitely be picking up Dare You To when it is released to find out more about Beth's story.

To be honest the only thing I didn't completely love about this book was the cover, it's ok, but for such an astounding debut I think it is a shame to have just an ok cover. I much prefer the American cover.

Pushing the Limits was a sucker punch of a story, so beautifully and tragically told that now over a week since I finished reading I still can't get it out of my head, full of brilliant one liners and descriptive prose it really is going to be a hard book to beat, without a doubt my favourite contemporary of the year so far.

Pushing The Limits is published by MiraInk and will be released on the 3rd August 2012